Generally, there are three ways in which bacterial do exchange information. These include transformation, conjugation and transduction. Do these ways constitute sex? Based on these ways of information exchange it can be seen that some bacterial species do have sex owing to the fact that these information exchange mechanisms principally constitute exchange in genes between bacterial. For instance, bacteria can have sex through conjugation which is a process in which two bacteria may combine to reproduce another cell and engage in genetic information exchange (Redfield, 2001).

However, there is tangibly no concrete prove that conjugation is a promoter of cell recombination although through parasexual process which involves a  bacterium not needing a partner to acquire genetic materials, bacterium can too have sex. Some bacterial species do actively engage in sex for reproduction while other does not reproduce through sex. This is because such bacteria have only a single set of genes instead of two thus their cells just divide without ever fusing with each other like sperms and eggs do. Short DNA pieces that make genes at times move from one bacterial cell to another thus they can randomly combine their different genetic versions in case of enough often combinations, as it happens in real sexual reproduction (Redfield, 2001).

Certainly for transduction, conjugation and the enzymes that generally cause physical recombination, it is evident that genetic bacterial exchange generally happens as an unexpected and unselected processes side effect as a result of functions that occur with process immediateness. Generally, bacterial combinations, just like mutation, are often more harmful than they are beneficial and therefore no successful resulting sexual reproduction or recombination.  Principally, it can therefore be deduced that unlike plants and animals, bacteria need a way so less of mixing (Redfield, 2001).

Incidental genetic exchange and mutation gives bacteria all that they need for genetic variation such that eukaryotes evolved sexual reproduction for they get much less accidental exchange as opposed to bacteria. But again, bacterium can have their own sex through parasexual processes in which a bacterium needs no partner for acquiring genetic materials. For instance, in transformation process where a bacterium just but ingests stray DNA from the environment. However the need behind transformation is never to serve recombination but instead the DNA strands serve as food for the bacteria for DNA is rich in phosphates, carbon and nitrogen which helps much in maintaining cell processes. During the ingestion, the strands degrade unlike the information carried by the DNA thus the bacterium further incorporate that generic information  like its  own hence causing accidental changes in their structure genetically thus justifying DNA uptake as moreorless of a sexual process (Redfield, 2001).

There has been much misleading and contradicting conceptions about bacterial sex one of them being terminology. For instance recombination and sex have been used interchangeably to mean the same thing and in other instances to point out different meanings. In a nutshell, bacteria sex is such a hard biological puzzle to study and solve.  Some pieces of research   have had it that bacteria do engage in sex for reproduction while other justify the opposite owing to the fact that bacterium exists in lone and biologically disintegrate for reproduction. Defining bacterial sex therefore needs lots of understanding and research on the terms to define it lest a single piece of understanding give different contradicting versions of the same piece of research (Redfield, 2001).

 

Reference

Rosemary Redfield, (2001), Do Bacteria Have Sex, Macmillan Magazines Limited.